


Blink back to let me know

by onvavoir



Series: I'll plead the fifth on all of this [7]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky Barnes Feels, Coffee Snob Sam Wilson, Feelings, Introspection, Multi, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-23
Updated: 2016-06-23
Packaged: 2018-07-16 20:11:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7283074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onvavoir/pseuds/onvavoir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No justification for this. Just some fluffy feely nonsense.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blink back to let me know

Feelings are not Bucky's strong suit. It's no surprise. When you spend seventy years not permitted to have any, being free again is like floating in the middle of the ocean. Everything is blue, and it's nice, but it does make it hard to tell where you are.

Sam loves him. That's really strange. It's good, he's pretty sure, but he's also pretty sure you're supposed to say it back to someone, and as much as he'd like to tell them both what they want to hear, he doesn't really know what he feels. Attraction, yes. Steve and Sam are handsome, and there's a little part of Bucky's mind that always does a joyful little jig at the thought that they both wanted him. That he pleases both of them, and not out of _compliance_. Because it feels good to him. He discovers these things in layers: he can have feelings now, he can be touched, he can touch, and he can have _these_ feelings now. He can touch Steve. He can touch Sam. They want him to. But _love_ , that's different. It's more than just a feeling or a physical need. It's too complex for him to wrap his head around.

He vaguely remembers _love_ from before. Wanting to be around someone, wanting to touch them. Sex and anticipation and missing them when they're not there and doing things to please them because you just want to see the smile on their face. Holding them when they wake up from a nightmare screaming.

Sometimes it's him, but almost as often it's Steve, and less frequently now, Sam. Bucky wakes up instantly and reaches for him-- unless it's his nightmare, in which case he's usually too paralysed by terror to move. They have a strategy now; whoever's having the nightmare gets rolled between the other two and sandwiched, held and stroked until the trembling eases. Most nights, Steve and Sam go back to sleep. Bucky doesn't, although he's learned to feign it so that they don't worry about him. It's still nice, lying warm between them and listening to them breathe. Sometimes Bucky orchestrates his nighttime movements to insinuate himself between them. One of them will get up to use the bathroom and Bucky will just happen to roll into the warm spot to snuggle up against the other.

When he thinks about it this way, he has all the pieces for love, but the apotheosis isn't there. He doesn't ever stop just to think about how much he loves either of them. It's never a complete thought on its own. He wishes it were. He wants it to be, but sometimes it feels like he's too broken to feel anything that human again.

Sam doesn't want Steve to know. Maybe because Sam's afraid it'll hurt Steve, because Steve is also in love with Bucky, and sometimes seventy years of torture almost seems worth it, if these two see something in him worth loving. The two people on earth who probably have the most reason to hate him. _It wasn't you_ , Steve says to him, so often that he's stopped talking about it at all. Bucky doesn't know how to explain to him that that doesn't matter. Fault or responsibility is irrelevant when you can still remember how it felt to have your hands around someone's throat.

He hears someone get out of bed, go into the bathroom, come out again. He knows it's Steve before he turns the corner.

"You're up early," Steve says.

Bucky shrugs. He goes on sipping his coffee and staring into space, ignoring the way that Steve is watching him. Steve leans against the kitchen counter and drinks milk straight from the carton. Sam has told him off for it countless times, never mind that the concept of backwash doesn't really fly when all three of them are fucking on the regular. Bucky says nothing, but he does give Steve a long meaningful look. Steve eyes him right back, then puts the carton back in the fridge.

"So what's going on with you two?"

"What do you mean?"

Steve shrugs.

"You and Sam. Did something happen?"

Bucky shrugs.

"Don't think so. What makes you say that?"

"You don't look each other in the eye anymore. And you're not looking _me_ in the eye."

Bucky drags his eyes upward and meets Steve's gaze.

"What's wrong?" Steve asks.

"Nothing is wrong, christ, stop being paranoid. There's no problem here to solve."

Bucky's become fond of saying that to him whenever he gets a little too Captain America about something, and he knows it drives Steve insane. It's part of the point, really. Steve purses his lips.

"There any coffee left?" Steve asks, although he's standing right next to the machine and can see damn well that there is.

"Yeah, course there is. Don't tell Sam I used the good coffee for it, though."

Steve grins in a way that seems to say _I'll keep your secret if you keep mine_. Sam's been very clear that if Steve wants to use something that's literally called Mr Coffee, he can damn well buy his own coffee for it and not use the locally-roasted Tanzanian peaberry Sam picks up from the hipster cafe a few blocks away. Bucky's not sure all those things are actual words, but if he asks, Sam will explain them to him, and nobody wants that.

Left to his own devices, Steve tends to buy ordinary ground coffee, although he's become fond of Cafe Bustelo recently. Sam always side eyes him when he makes it, but he says he's given up trying to civilise the two cavemen from the 20th century. If Steve wants to drink filter coffee, he can go ahead and drink it, to which Steve always shrugs and says _coffee's coffee_ , which he knows full well will set Sam off on another rant about how it's _not_ , have I taught you _nothing?_ and Bucky smiles a little to himself at the thought. He can't usually be bothered to operate the espresso machine himself, but if Sam's around and asks him if he wants one, he won't say no to one of those cappuccinos Sam's really good at.

"How long have you been up?" Steve asks.

Casual, not as if he's worried, not Steve Rogers, no way.

"Couple of hours."

"Bad night?"

"No, just couldn't really sleep."

"My understanding is that coffee doesn't really help."

Bucky rolls his eyes and gets up to pour himself another cup. Steve puts his arms around him, presses their foreheads together, kisses him.

"Love you, Buck."

"I know."

Steve laughs.

"I should never have showed you Star Wars."

"Huh?"

Steve laughs again. He kisses Bucky, both hands cradling his jaw. He doesn't seem bothered, but Bucky apologises anyway.

"For what?" Steve asks.

He shrugs.

"It's not… I don't…"

Steve wraps his arms around him.

"You don't need to say anything."

If Steve's hurt by Bucky's emotional paralysis, he's uncharacteristically good at hiding it. Maybe he's just so grateful to have Bucky back that doesn't care about the particulars. His mouth finds Bucky's again, and they share a long, deep kiss that holds promises for later. Bucky smiles-- all that the other night, that was Steve's idea, even if he needed Sam to do the dirty work for him. They both did that. Because they wanted him to feel good-- although he's pretty sure bragging rights were also part of the equation. He pulls back a little with Steve's lip caught between his teeth. When he looks up, Steve's eyes have gone dark.

The toilet flushes, and they turn around as Sam walks into the kitchen. He shakes his head.

"I knew it. I wake up, all cold and alone, and you two are in here getting frisky. How could you?"

"If blowing me would make you feel better, you're welcome to," Bucky says, and Steve nearly spits out the coffee in his mouth.

Sam eyes them and then sidles up to the counter. He looks down at the coffee pot and then back at them, and they know exactly what he's going to say before it comes out of his mouth.

"That had better not be my--"

"It's not," Steve says, perhaps the only convincing lie he's ever told.

"It is," Bucky says. "Sorry, I didn't feel like going out to get some. I'll get you another bag next time I'm out."

Sam crosses his arms and purses his lips in that way he has that means he's not actually mad but wants Bucky or Steve to think he is so they'll do something nice for him. The fact that they know exactly what he's doing doesn't mean it doesn't work. Steve thinks it's kinda cute. He's started doing it himself, but he really doesn't have a good enough poker face to pull it off. When Bucky tries it, he just looks genuinely irritated and possibly murderous instead of cute.

Maybe if he shaved and cut his hair. But Steve's told him in no uncertain terms that he would very much like it if Bucky did not do that, please, so Bucky leaves it long. He's taken to wearing a hair tie around his wrist. He takes it off, holds it between his lips, and ties his hair back. Sam's _I am definitely mad at you expression_ intensifies.

"You did that on purpose," he accuses.

"I did that because it was in my face. Although the blowjob offer still stands."

Sam sighs.

"I hate you."

Bucky smiles at him over the rim of his newly-filled coffee cup, although he realises-- damn Steve to hell-- that he doesn't quite make eye contact with Sam as he does it.


End file.
